By Ken Reed
The research mound keeps getting higher and higher with studies showing that active, fit kids perform better academically.
One of the latest studies in this regard concluded that young people who play sports competitively perform better academically. A summary of the study done by Ana Capdevila Seder at the Universitat Jaume I was published in Science Daily on June 12th.
The study found that students who were also athletes had better study habits and spent less time on sedentary leisure activities than their peers. The study revealed that the role of parents in sports is important too. For example, if parents participated in some type of sports activity, 86 percent of their children did too. Also, active parents help children facilitate sports training time and study tasks.
The Science Daily article on the study highlighted “how profitable it is to invest time in active leisure instead of sedentary leisure activities, thus showing that sport at competition level improves [academic] performance and does not interfere with studies during adolescence.”
School board members and administrators need to get serious about turning their schools into “movement schools” instead of “sitting schools.”
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
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